


Same As It Ever Was

by Redrikki



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Gen, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29121426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: The portal machine's effects are different. Catra pulls the lever and time resets. Again and again and again.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2020





	Same As It Ever Was

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FictionPenned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/gifts).



Of course the time loop doesn’t start anywhere useful. Catra pulls the lever, time resets, but it does’t send Adora back to the Crimson Waste to keep from getting captured or any other point that would keep this from happening. No, it leaves her gagged and helpless, chained to a pillar in Hordak’s lab, just three minutes earlier. Adora howls her frustration into the gag.

Catra stumbles in looking dazed. Something explodes in the distance with a muffled whump and she shakes her head as if to clear it. “The princesses are here,” she says, just like the last go around. “There’s no time to waste. We have to open the portal.”

“Where is Entrapta?” Hordak demands. “I need her.”

The two of them keep talking, but Adora tunes them out. If she can just get loose she can still fix this. The cuffs dig into her wrists as she strains and squirms. Bracing her feet against the base of the pillar, she wrenches herself forward with all her might. Something pops in her shoulder and all Adora can do is scream. 

“What?” Catra whirls at the sound, only to catch a blast of magic in the chest.

Catra hits the floor and the room dissolves into chaos. Arrow fly. Magic glows. Hordak yanks a pillar out of the floor and hurls it at Glimmer and Shadow Weaver. They deflect into one of those weird glowing vats and glass and green goo go everywhere. Adora pants through her pain like a useless lump as Catra pulls herself up off the floor. Everyone’s so busy fighting, no one else notices as she pulls the switch. Energy crackles along the portal machine and down the sword as everything resets. Again. This time, Adora tells herself, she’ll do better.

* * *

It takes Adora three more times to concede that she’s not getting out of the cuffs.

* * *

She focuses on the gag this time around. If she can just get it out, she can warn her friends and _they_ can stop Catra. Hordak had tied it on extra tight after he’d gotten sick of listening to her, so she can’t just shake it off. It will take work. 

“The princesses are here,” Catra says as she makes her big entrance. “There’s no time to waste. We have to open the portal.” She sounds almost bored as she recites her lines, but that can’t be right. Adora’s just projecting her own frustration. Catra can’t be in on the loop. There’s no way she’d keep activating the portal if she knew it didn’t work. 

Adora shakes the idea out of her head. It won’t matter either way as long as she can get the gag out. She tries pushing it out with her tongue and pulling it down with her chin. It’s pushing it down with her shoulder that finally does the trick just as her friends call out for her.

“Bow!” she calls back. “Bow, get me loose so I can—”

Catra’s hand is on the lever before Bow makes it half-way across the room.

* * *

“Bow, get the sword it—”

The room lights up as energy surges across the machine and down the length of the blade.

* * *

“Bow, stop Catra! She’s going to—”

“Don’t you get it yet, Adora?” Catra asks as she activates the portal. “I win. You lose. Forever.”

* * *

Catra smirks as she saunters in and there’s no denying anymore that she knows exactly what’s she’s doing. 

“Hey, Adora.” She poses and preens in front her her captive. 

Adora spits her gag out and glares up at her captor. “You know about the loop too.”

“Ah, doy. I’d say I’m surprised it took you so long to figure it out, but no one ever accused you of being the smart one.”

Hordak frowns in confusion as he looks between them. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Hush now,” Catra dismisses him with a flick of her hand. “Grownups are talking.”

Adora shakes her head. “I don’t understand. You know the portal doesn’t work. Why do you keep pulling the lever?”

“I don’t care about the stupid portal,” Catra laughs.

“What?!” Hordak roars.

“I just like seeing that look of defeat on your face.” Catra talks over him like he’s not even there. This little drama is just for the two of them and no one else matters; not her boss and certainly not the people seconds away from storming the room. None of them matter to Catra, but maybe if Adora can just keep her busy, they might stand a chance of stopping her. 

Bow calls out from the hall and Catra takes that as her cue to reach for the lever.

“No!” Adora wrenches her arms as the opportunity darts out of reach. She thumps her head back against the pillar. There never was an opportunity, was there? Of course Catra has the sequence memorized.

“See, there it is,” Catra says and rests time.

* * *

“It’s all your fault, you know,” Catra starts monologging before Adora can even get her gag out. “If you hadn’t gotten captured, your sword wouldn’t have opened the portal. If you hadn’t gotten the sword and been the world’s worst She-Ra, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Even Hordak looks a little taken aback by the sheer viciousness of the attack, but Catra always did like kicking when someone was down and then digging her claws in. Adora wants to deny it, but hadn’t she been thinking the same thing five or six cycles ago? If she hadn’t gotten captured, if she hadn’t abandoned Entrapta, if she’d fought harder, been better, maybe none of this would have happened. Tears blur her vision. Her whole life had been this endless struggle to be perfect, to stop the bad things and she never managed it. 

“You broke the world, Adora, and now you have to live in it.” This time when Catra reaches for the lever, Adora doesn’t even try to fight.

* * *

Adora fights back next time and the time after that. They all start to bend together, all the failed attempts. She’s tried getting loose. She’s tried warning her friends. She’s even tried warning _Hordak_. None of it works. Catra is the key, but Catra doesn’t want to listen. 

Catra comes in looking as tired as Adora feels. Everything resets when time does. Adora’s bruises disappear and her dislocated shoulder pops back into place, but it’s wearing on her. Catra’s shoulders slump like it’s wearing on her too.

“It’s getting to you too, isn’t it? Do you really hate me so much you’d keep putting yourself through this?”

The words send a jolt through Catra and set her tail lashing. “You took everything from me!” she yells. “You took it all and you left me here.” Her voice breaks on the last word.

“I asked you to come and you shocked me in the back!”

“So, what? It’s my fault?”

The obvious answer is yes. Growing up here hadn’t been easy for either of them and the second she’d found a way out, Adora had taken it. Catra could have that out too, but she kept refusing to see it. It’s like she wants to make herself miserable. “You’re the one who keeps pulling the switch.”

Catra snarls and yanks down the lever. “And I’m going to keep pulling it until—” 

Time resets before she finishes saying what would make her stop.

* * *

Adora sighs and lets her head fall back against the pillar. “How long are we going to keep doing this?”

“For as long as it takes to win.”

“Win?” Adora laughs, possibly a bit hysterically. “You’ve already won.” How did she not see that?

Hordak looks back and forth between them. “What are you two talking about?” They probably sound crazy. Maybe they are. It’s been long enough.

There was a time when Adora thought she could control Catra, curb her worst impulses, and keep her safe from herself. Adora had tried and tried and tried, repeatedly pulling the reset switch on their relationship even when it obviously wasn’t working. It’s clear now that she can’t fix Catra. If this is going to end, Catra’s going to have to fix herself.

“You’re the one with the power here. Is this what you really want? Doing this for the rest of forever? You can stop, you know. Whenever you're ready.” 

“I—” Catra hesitates this time before she pulls the lever. It says something sad about her life that that second’s hesitation fills Adora with something like hope.


End file.
